If You Decide To Speak
by cascade-up
Summary: Moments in their lives.
1. Disenchanted Fairy Tale

Chapter 1: Disenchanted Fairy Tale

You would never believe it now, but as a child I loved fairy tales. There's no excuse, really. They weren't even the dark and twisty ones where the poor orphan children freeze to death on the street, comforted by the light of a solitary matchstick. Instead, I was fully enthralled by the sanitized, de-humanized, someday-my-prince-will-come-for-me storylines that Disney regularly churns out once a year. I wore my hair in a long braid for four months after reading Rapunzel. I spent an afternoon collecting dead branches and vines, placed them outside my bedroom door, and then fell asleep just waiting for someone to brave the forest fortress and wake me. I started talking to a mouse I found in the attic, trying to teach it how to carry thimbles and thread across the floor. You can imagine the horrified look I got from my mother when she discovered my little experimental foray.

This shouldn't be terribly surprising. What is it that all children crave most when they're young? Home comforts, security, wealth, fame … a guarantee of happily ever after. Come to think of it, not much changes after you grow up. The only difference is that, as an adult, you stop believing that fairy tales can actually happen. Well, maybe the original Hans Christian Anderson ones still have a shot, but Cinderella? Forget about it.

I was nine years old when reality came barging in, not so much a knight in shining armor as Alexander's army conquering Greece. It was an overcast day, which was rare for Los Angeles; yesterday's rain had dispelled the smog and the sky was an unpolluted shade of gray. I was in the backseat of the car, pointing out the atrocious grammatical errors that peppered the billboards on the sides of the freeway. Maybe I was too caustic in my grumblings, or maybe the errors were particularly egregious that day, but my dad took his eyes off the road to gaze where my finger pointed; that gaze has haunted me ever since.

A car had stalled in the middle freeway, and reflex made my dad hit the brakes and change lanes. It would have been a routine occurrence, save for the 18-wheeler just two feet in front of us. Growing up in southern California you learn to tune out the constant barrage of angry drivers and blaring horns. Call it a sanity check. So it was the smell of tires skidding against the asphalt that reached me first, before any sound of crunched metal and dashed windshields could register in my ears. It was an explosive symphony that was immediately followed by a deafening silence.

The human brain is an incredible machine – it teaches your body to avoid the things that cause it physical pain – and it tells your mind to forget the gruesome details that cause the emotional ones. I don't remember much of what happened between the time of the crash and reaching the hospital, but this I do know: I recall vividly the way his blood started soaking through the material of his shirt, the color floating through the fibers of the cotton. I recall my too-small hands pressing down on his chest, crimson-stained and pathetic. And I also remember feeling the light flutter of his heart beneath my hands beat one final goodbye before seeing the sirens of the ambulance finally making its way toward us.

That was the day when I stopped believing in fairy tales. You see, Disney got it all wrong. You want to know what really happened to the Little Mermaid? Her prince falls in love with another princess, and Ariel, refusing to kill him, dies heartbroken and alone. Sleeping Beauty wakes up, but not because of true love's kiss. Turns out the noble knight already had a queen. He rapes her and then leaves, returning home to his beloved wife. And as for Little Red Riding Hood? No hunter ever came to save her. The wolf feasted, grew fat, and lived a life of gluttony.

So what, then, is the moral of this story? There never will be a prince with sword in hand and valor to spare waiting to storm the dungeon and rescue you. The only means of escape are what your own hands can do. I watched my father die while waiting for Prince Charming to arrive. Guess what? He never did. So I made damn sure that the next time something happened, and the next time, and the time after that … I wouldn't be caught high in a tower with no means of escape. I'd cut off my hair and rappel down the walls if necessary, because this is what I learned as a little girl who once upon a time held her father's heart in her hands: No one can really live happily ever after. Sometimes, it's simply enough just to live.


	2. Strange Familiar

Chapter 2: Strange Familiar

There are moments in time when change comes as gradually as the ebb and flow of the evening tide. One morning you wake up, and the smell of the air is a little bit crisper, or the carpet just a little more faded than what you're used to. Nothing's really changed; the world is just the same as it used to be. It's like sitting in an empty theater, and suddenly switching seats. The movie's the same, but your eyes adjust slightly to the new perspective. It's a shift so subtle that your mind doesn't even register the difference … but it's there. All these little moments in time eventually amount to something significant, telling the story of a life lived, battles lost, scars not yet healed. At some point you begin to notice that the man you once started out as has become a kind of strange familiar.

People always ask me why I joined the military. Truth is, I don't really know. Maybe it started when my parents gave me my first G.I. Joe action figure. Maybe the idea began festering while watching old reruns of Combat on television. Or maybe my path to the army was a result of many of those unnoticeable, indistinguishable moments during my childhood. All I know is that becoming a soldier was as natural to me as music was to Mozart, or painting was to Picasso, and if anyone had asked me what I really wanted to be when I grew up, I wouldn't have known what they meant.

The first time I came back from the war she greeted me at the airport, all smiles and sunshine; she smelled of coffee and raindrops, pencil erasers and copy machine paper, and all the normal things I had left behind. And though it took me the better part of my leave to become comfortable again with the natural rhythm of our lives – the steady rise and fall of her breathing at night, the back and forth banter at the kitchen table, the smell of her shampoo lingering on my collar – it was a comfort to know that maybe, just maybe, I could go home again.

The second time I came back she was at the airport with another smile on her face, car keys in one hand, and a crossword puzzle in the other. Her voice hinted at something, implied a thought that never reached my grasp. Had that always been there, and what was it? Was it innocence? Was it ignorance? For the first time I didn't understand her smile. I started calling her Mona Lisa. She took it as a compliment, and I let her think that it was.

We went through the motions of a happy couple, and at times I even believed my own charade. But I had seen too much blood shed in the name of a righteous cause and too many lives destroyed by a misguided faith to ever fall back comfortably into the sunshine of her world. Maybe I had had too many of those small moments to fit back into her image of what we were supposed to be. Maybe she hadn't had enough. And because I couldn't live with the strange familiar any longer, I didn't.

The third time I came back I arrived to an empty airport terminal, terrified by every blonde head that passed me by. She would have been there if I would have asked, but I didn't, and so she wasn't. Is this what a man does when he loses all semblance of himself? Is he still a man? Is he still worthy enough to call himself a member of the human race?

There are some moments in time that sneak up on you with the ease and stealth of dusk, and other times that pound you on the chest with the subtlety of machine-gun fire. Either way you come out a different person. And who's to say which is the more devastating?

I was a soldier once, a lifetime and seven seconds ago. We can rename ourselves as many times as we like – change apartments, change jobs, change lives – but our past selves can't be discarded quite so easily. They're our shadows, stitched on by time and heartbreak, love and longing. The tide may wash away the markings on the sand, but the sea remembers every written word. And the shore remembers its buried scars, waiting for the next time the waters rise, as surely they will, to erase what once was and make a new path for what will be.


	3. The Price You Pay

Chapter 3: The Price You Pay

Engineers have this diagram, called a stress-strain curve, which graphically depicts the relationship between the stress applied to a material and its resulting deformation. In the beginning, the material's behavior is completely linear – you pull with a certain force, and it deforms; pull twice as hard, and it deforms twice as much. Once the force is released, the material goes back to its original shape. You can't even tell that any stress was ever applied. It's called the elastic region, and the world would be so much simpler if all things just stayed there; but the world's not that simple, and the rules state that once you leave, you can never come back.

You pull a little bit harder, and eventually the material reaches its yield strength, at which point you've now entered the plastic region. Here, the laws of linearity no longer apply. Predictions and expectations are meaningless. What's worse is that even after the stress is gone, the material can never go back to its original, untarnished, whole and healthy state. Eden has closed its doors.

Increase the force even more, and inherent weaknesses begin to reveal themselves. The cross-sectional area grows smaller, and the same stresses now feel even stronger, and you eventually reach the point of rupture. All metals have a breaking point. The trick of science is in determining just how far you can stretch something without ever letting it fail. And the only way you can really know a material's limits is by failing … a lot.

For me, it's been a difficult concept to master, because my entire life has been spent trying to avoid reaching that state. I win all the contests, because I've seen the alternative, and it is not something that I would ever want to experience again. And so, as I watch him steady his hand, in preparation for the first cut that should have been mine to make, I can feel myself deforming. As the blade touches the skin, I've left linearity completely behind, and because I know what happens to metal when you apply too much force, I preemptively leave the room.

But the damage has already been set in motion, and as I try to steady my breathing, its effects are slowly coming into play. And then I feel an arm brush past me; he's opening the stairway door, and leading me downstairs into an empty room. I'm confused, and on the verge of breaking, with sixteen different thoughts racing through my head. "Just wait," he says, and I do. Then something wonderful happens. The air comes up and slowly unchains me from my tethers, and I can feel the stress leave, dancing its way through the tendrils of steam around me. My body slowly eases back into itself, and I begin to laugh, in a reckless way that I haven't done since I was a child.

That's when I remember. We're flesh and blood, not plastic and metal. It's something that I've forgotten – it's something that's taken a trauma surgeon in an empty, isolated corner of a hospital to remind me. All metals might break, but cells have the ability heal. Living creatures have a great capacity for regeneration, a premise so obvious that even though I've based my life's work on it, it has never until now been completely formalized in my head.

"So you miss out on the first solo surgery," he says. "Twenty years from now, will it make any difference? You'll get your chance, and soon. This was one opportunity out of many. It was a routine amputation. The important thing is that we all chose you. We all trusted you. You'll learn more from this experience, however unfair and unjustified it may be, than you would have ever learned alone in that operating room. It's the price you pay. And all things considered, for the price that you paid, it's a steal." And just like that, the doors to Eden opened back up. Guided by his warm voice, and the fading wisps of steam still clinging to the air, I walked back in.


	4. Coorie Doon

Chapter 4: Coorie Doon

The Swainson's Thrush is a species of bird native to Alaska and northern Canada. Every fall, right before winter comfortably situates herself for the season, they gather together, and collectively, begin a 3000-mile journey toward South America. What scientists have only recently discovered, however, is that in order to reach their destinations on time, the birds sleep during their flights. It's the ultimate in multi-tasking, because the average time of each nap is a mere nine seconds.

Two years ago, I would have said that such erratic sleep patterns weren't possible; sooner or later you'd break down from mental and physical exhaustion. Nowadays I'm more hesitant to make such bold assumptions. Nowadays, I envy those birds their nine seconds.

As a child, you develop ways to combat the nightmares that come at bedtime. Nightlights can ward off demons lurking in the far corners of the closet. Warm milk can soothe the knotted muscles in the stomach. A mother's gentle whispers can banish any lingering traces of fear from troubled minds. All these weapons are ample artillery for a five-year-old whose only worldly experiences consist of the things learned from the schoolyard and discoveries made while playing in the backyard.

Thirty years later those demons have grown up as well, and they've learned to laugh at the nightlights we futilely set up to ward off intruders. Milk has now lost its potency … as have sleeping pills … as have bottles of alcohol. And parents, with the best of intentions, have grown to disappoint.

It was nearly a month after I arrived back in Seattle before the nightmares materialized. They were sporadic at first, maybe once a week, maybe once every two; but they were there, and always of the same thing, and pretty soon they became regular visitors. The scene started back in the desert, a split second before the RPG ambush. One minute we were all trying to get back to post as quickly as possible, and then in the next, we were just trying to survive: it was chaos. Image after image, flashes of bloodied body parts – my adrenaline, fear-soaked body rushing back and forth trying desperately to save the men dying next to me, all the while tensing and bracing for the next, inevitable onslaught. There wasn't enough morphine. There could never be enough morphine, and I could hear the cries of pain around me as the screech of a grenade launched past my ear … and then I jerk awake. The smell of burning flesh and the bitter tang of blood my sole companions. Every. Single. Time.

Your body learns to cope with the things that disturb its perfect equilibrium. It adapts and prioritizes. Sleep may be a necessary commodity, but not at the expense of a restless slumber; especially not one peppered by visits from too-familiar demons brought back from the sandpit. So I've learned to dread the beauty of a sunset, because all that it is is a reminder of the unattainable serenity that has, for months, taunted me from afar. And so too has my body learned to ignore its natural circadian rhythm, instead choosing to substitute a full night's rest with the occasional ten-minute respite. It's certainly not an adequate replacement, but what's the alternative?

Who can say how long this balancing act can remain on its razor-thin fulcrum. Even the slightest perturbation can lead to an amplified response, perhaps leading to a cure, but more likely causing even greater harm. Sociologists call it the tipping point: a confluence of events leading up to one final instance where the momentum for change becomes impossible to stop. I thought my tipping point came when a meek and doe-eyed schoolteacher walked through the hospital doors. But, as with most things, I was wrong.

It came later, in an empty examination room, when she saw me break down, and when she didn't run. When she embraced not only me, but also my demons and wounded memories. And when she pretended that the dry sobs coming painfully from my chest were something that happens to everyone; as normal as breathing, as normal as breath.

And now I find myself resting in the delicate but durable confines of her arms. The lamp by the bed is lit, and though the glow from the light is soft, some invisible reinforcement has multiplied its power tenfold that of its childish cousin. For one brief moment, a moment that has for so long eluded me, there are absolutely no thoughts in my head. Only the barest rustle of her shirt against my hair … only the slightest crinkle of the diary pages against her fingertips. The nightmares can't find me here, protected as I am by this talisman of cotton and light, of dark hair and ivory skin. And then, the softest sounds emerge from her lips.

"Coorie doon my dear and in your ear, while stars light up the sky, I'll sing a song, a slumber song, a miner's lullaby."

For someone so independently strong and spirited, her voice was shockingly sweet and vulnerable. "I had a neighbor, growing up," she said, "who used to babysit me from time to time. I never liked having to go to bed, especially after the accident, but for some reason, this song always put me to sleep. She said it was something her mother used to sing to her back home, in Scotland. Coorie doon – it means…"

"To nestle down …" I half-whispered, and the light brush of her hand on my neck gave a silent confirmation.

Once a year the Swainson's Thrush are able to make a new home in the south, somewhere far away from the harsh winds of their native forests. How long did it take them to find a haven in a foreign land that agreed to bar winter from its doors? And if those tiny creatures could find sanctuary, surely there was a chance that I could as well – maybe I just did. Then consciousness faded, and I surrendered to the most restful sleep I had had in years – serenaded by the hypnotic lilt of her Scottish lullaby, and the words:

"Coorie doon, coorie doon, coorie doon, my darling.

Coorie doon, my dear."

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**(AN: Thanks for the wonderful feedback. These characters have completely revitalized my love for the show. Not sure where this story's going, but eagerly anticipating the next moment of inspiration.)  
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	5. Hail Mary

**AN: Experimenting with the format a little bit. Last section's liberally borrowed (aka transcribed) from the show. You can't mess with something that's already great. **

Chapter 5: Hail Mary

* * *

What can you say about a 29-year-old woman who's been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma? That she's beautiful, and sometimes overly compassionate, driven but too often ruled by the whims of her heart. That she is more friend than acquaintance, and less confidante than colleague. That the overwhelming statistics rate her chance of survival at a meager five percent.

In medical school they train you to view patients objectively, to remove yourself from their lives, so that their lives don't remove all humanity from you. But they never teach you what to say to a fellow doctor, standing right in front of you, telling you that she's about to die. She chose me as secret-keeper, because she thinks that I'm the strong one. I may not be her person, but at least I won't break down – so at least she has that much to hold on to. And while there may be no comforting words to say to her, I have no other choice but to assume the responsibility that comes with being the stoic, unfeeling one – and I pray, to whatever forces are out there controlling the universe, that she's right.

_Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum._

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* * *

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There are 54 wooden blocks in a Jenga set – rows of 3 stacked 18 stories high. The object of the game is to remove a block from anywhere inside the tower, without letting it collapse. Once the tower falls, you lose.

I had come to Seattle Grace already halfway through a game, riddled with empty pieces.

Another piece came out the day she thought I forgot her name.

Another when I accused her of not caring enough for patients.

Another on the night I showed up drunk to her apartment.

One when she met Beth for the first time.

Two more when she found out about the two-line e-mail.

And three when the deep gash on her arm began to drip with blood.

"It's going to take more than a bad dream to scare me away," she says. If only I could assure her that that was all that was wrong. If only I were strong enough to rebuild myself. If only I could learn how to stay away.

_Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee._

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* * *

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For months after the surgery I felt unbalanced, and even imagined myself walking with a slight limp. The fallopian tube is the size of a pencil – inconsequential in weight when compared to the rest of the internal organs. Nonetheless, the imperfectness was still inside me, and even though I couldn't see it, its absence bore heavier than any physical mass ever could.

You ever wonder what would have happened if you didn't get what you wished for? If fate had intervened differently? I know, with absolute certainty, that I would have never sacrificed my career for a baby at that stage in life – or even this stage in life. But there are days when I imagine that she would have had my eyes, and his smile … and wonder if he would have been as neat as his father, or have inherited his mother's knack for creating messes. There are days when I contemplate what it would be like to live the life that I never wanted.

_Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tul, Iesus._

* * *

Six minutes – one for each mile physically separating us.

Three hundred and sixty seconds – one for each of the ways I've changed, one for each of the ways in which she wouldn't be able to recognize the son that she sent off to war.

One tenth of an hour – the fraction of the person I used to be.

Six minutes. That's my limit. That's the longest length of time I can spend on the phone with her, before the weight of the lies becomes too stifling. There's no number large enough to quantify my guilt when I hear the mixture of relief and pride in her voice during this weekly ritual. There's no number small enough to fully encompass the feelings of cowardice at having to lie to the woman who's never kept any secrets from me. I try to convince myself that I'm looking out for her best interests – that knowing I'm home, and seeing me as I am, would only sadden her. There are occasions when I almost manage to convince myself of these deceptions. But, for one reason or another, they never seem to last for longer than six minutes.

_Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus._

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The tears keep streaming down her face. This is what happens when you let compassion overrule common sense – when you forget that justice is necessary for the good of society – when you start to feel sorry for murderers. I can't fault her for the tears. We're doctors. We're trained to heal, and it goes against every muscle and sinew to sit back and watch as medicine helps to end a life, and not the other way around. But the execution doesn't absolve him of his sins, nor can it bring back the lives of those he killed. It's something that she and I will differ on, and no amount of arguing can reconcile. So I sit with her, and I talk to her about the things that we both do wholly agree upon.

"Lethal injection involves a sequence of three different drugs applied intravenously. The first is sodium thiopental, a barbiturate designed to induce unconsciousness. Next is a dose of pancuronium, a muscle relaxant that causes complete and sustained paralysis. Finally, potassium chloride is injected to stop the heart. Death comes seven minutes later."

_Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae._

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* * *

  
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The first blast injury I encountered in the field took the form of a soldier barely out of his teens. His body was mangled. Homemade explosive device, wires embedded five inches deep in the abdomen – arms and legs hanging on by threads of skin. I'd never seen anything like it, not in textbooks, not in residency. Incredible. An entire body full of holes. It was a trauma surgeon's dream. I put tourniquets on where I could, started tying off the arteries with my bare hands, but the bleeding was everywhere, on his stomach, his chest … The best pressure I could think of was my own body so I just laid there for two hours on top of him just, not moving, trying to keep that dam from bursting with my hands and knees and elbows. A body, full of holes. He never bled out. I wouldn't let him. He made it to the hospital; he made it home. A month later he sent me a letter thanking me for saving his life, and then he shot himself. That was my best surgery ever. And my worst.

_Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death._

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* * *

  
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_Amen._


	6. Scheherazade

Chapter 6: Scheherazade

There's something innately human about cultivating traditions. Life for our earliest ancestors was cold and brutal. The epic struggle for existence was fought on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis, and somewhere in the midst of that uncertainty we humans learned to cling to whatever form of normalcy and stability that our imaginations could fabricate. Thousands of years later, that primal instinct still survives, evident in the ritual behaviors of our lives.

I have never been quite as in awe of grand holiday customs as most people. Growing up as a child of divorce tends to splinter the group family get-togethers. Warm nostalgia melts away to tense confrontations and awkward silences. Entire Tolstoy novels could be written by the words never said over Thanksgiving break. I've always taken more of a liking to the smaller ceremonies of everyday existence – the things that you come to expect and rely on – the things that, added together, make up the fabric of a life fully lived.

As with most evolutionary processes, the exact instance a tradition starts is oftentimes difficult to pinpoint. One day you look up and you realize that you measure the hours by those fleeting moments, unsure of how it all began. But not this one. This one started on a clear November night, on the doorsteps of my apartment, one block away from the hospital. I didn't know the reason for his appearance, but there was no way I could overlook the desperation in his eyes.

Humans aren't solitary creatures, and even though as surgeons we force ourselves to become lone warriors, force of habit always makes us seek out company in some form or another. He didn't want to explain his real reason for showing up, and since I didn't need a justification for his presence, we just sat there in silence. "I think you're beautiful," he eventually says, and somewhere inside the fight from earlier in the day eases its claws, just a bit. Twenty minutes pass, without a word spoken, but with everything said. Then his hand brushes mine, and he walks away.

The next time I saw him on the doorstep he was ending a shift, as I was about to begin one. The tension in his shoulders relaxed when he heard my footsteps – a nearly imperceptible change – but one that made me smile in the way that any woman would knowing she exerts some influence over the opposite sex. Our time that morning was restricted by the hospital's schedule, but I sat down anyways, and waited for him to speak. He didn't, and since I had the excuse of quickly walking away, I said to him, "I think your eyes are beautiful. I could look into them all day." I got up and practically ran across the street, grateful that my hair was able to cover my reddening face.

Each time after that, when he arrived on my doorstep, we would take turns talking. Never more than a sentence at a time. But for now, that was enough, because what was left unspoken, could fill an entire Tolstoy novel.

"I think I'm only alive when you're with me."

"I think you've made me remember what it is to feel again."

"I think there's nothing you can't do."

"I think the most comforting sound is your heartbeat against my ear."

"I think I can see us together forty years in the future."

"I think it might be 50."

"I think I love you."

Dinner on the table by 6 p.m., an ice cream cone on Sunday afternoons, small phrases said right before any surgery – all things that are developed as a way to stabilize our hectic lives. Customs designed to give the impression that we exert some control in the grand scheme of things, in much the same way that our ancestors did to overcome their unknowns: prayers before the hunt, dances around the fires, chants before the winter snows. Our encounters on the steps outside the door happened at odd times in the day, and sporadically throughout the days, but they nevertheless became as dependable as the swinging of the pendulum. And just as those ancestors found comfort in their rituals for survival, I too began to embrace the time I shared with him, and the words that formed a courtship between the two of us. Even more importantly, I came to rely on the things that were shared, but at the time, were too fragile to be spoken.


	7. Dear Love

Chapter 7: Dear Love

An MRI machine, however powerful, is limited to revealing the wounds of the flesh, and nothing more. The ghosts in this shell scream out in silence for the other kinds of scars inside my head, drowning out all thoughts and keepsakes from our time together.

Dear Love, these are the things that I remember – your warm body pressed against mine, your sighs as my lips parted yours, the searing trace of your fingers against my face, the rapid flutter of your heartbeat as you cried out in pleasure. I remember the first time I kissed you, how utterly new and completely familiar you felt. I remember how when everything else in my world had changed, your kiss was the hint of a whisper of a lingering connection to the man I was before. I remember the first time I heard you laugh, and how that sound was a salve over a fevered, troubled mind. What will you remember? What memories of our brief time together will haunt your thoughts day and night … will be your constant companion now that I can no longer be? What secrets now lie in your heart? Where will they go, all those intangibles?

Dear Love, these are the things that I never told you, that I need you to know – that I fell for you the first moment I saw you, that I carried the thought of you with me into a foreign land, that I left a part of myself with you for safekeeping when I went back to war. Could revealing any of these things have changed the trajectory of our lives? Probably not, but these are the only treasures I have. And even though you deserve so much more, they are the only gifts I am capable of giving. What things would you have told me, if we had had more time? What jokes could we have shared, what arguments could we have fought over, what common bonds could we have discovered if the circumstances had been different?

Dear Love, these are the things that I regret most deeply – the unclosed wound on your arm, the dark bruises displayed prominently around your neck, the terror you now feel while in my arms. Your cries for air in the middle of the night still ring in my ears, despite having no recollection of them. Imagination is a far crueler master than reality could ever deign to be. What would you choose to forget? Would you erase every caress alongside each battered appendage? If forgetting the hurt meant removing every stolen glance and quiet conversation – would you sacrifice it? With all the pain you've suffered – that I've inflicted – I would expect nothing less … and deserve a thousand times more.

Dear Love, these are the things that weren't meant to be – peaceful slumbers with you in my embrace, casual dates where we could reminisce about the past, my toothbrush next to yours above the bathroom sink. I wish that the rest of our lives could be untainted, that I could look at you without any shame, and that I could approach you without the slight fear and hesitation you try to hide. I wish that I could one day hand you a key to my home, and demand a drawer for my clothes. I wish that we could redo yesterday and have tomorrow. What would you have wanted? What things, with these broken hands of mine, could I have provided for you? And would it ever have been enough?

Dear Love, if I could have one day with you and you alone – if I could share one perfect day without the burden of my shadows on our shoulders, I would cherish the simple things. I would trace the curve of your jaw and memorize the curl of your hair. I would kiss every freckle and map each one in my heart. I would introduce you to the places I discovered as a child, and boast of every surgical feat from my residency. I would take the time to learn every spot on your body that makes you shiver and commit to memory the look in your eyes when I'm inside you.

Dear Love, these are the things that I hope for – that one day I can redeem myself and prove my worth, that sleep for you will come as softly as the passing of a nightingale in the stilled air, that we can laugh together without the bitter tang of caution on our tongues. And while these may yet be too far away to grasp, I hope that lying here, in this machine, away from you, will mean that I can be one step closer to reaching that goal. I hope that one day you might wish for the same thing.


	8. Apache Tears

Chapter 8: Apache Tears

Happy are the eyes that can close, for beneath them lie a mind at peace. Somber are the eyes that are filled with tears, for they can neither fully purge nor absorb all the sorrows hidden within.

A long, long time ago, in a far away land – called Arizona – there once lived a tribe of Apache warriors. When the white man began killing all the buffalo, and the women and children began to starve, these warriors raided the settlements and stole cattle to feed their families. The military, outraged at such savage conduct, trailed the cattle tracks, and waited until dawn to attack and seek out their own brand of justice. The Apaches, so sure of the safety of their hiding place, were caught unaware and completely outnumbered; of the 75 men at the camp, 50 died from that first assault. The remaining ones retreated to the cliff's edge, and rather than be killed by their enemies' hands, they jumped.

Later on, their wives and lovers gathered near the base of the cliff, bent down upon their knees onto the white ground of the canyon floor, and wept for an entire moon. They mourned for the men, and, most heartbreakingly of all, wept for the futures that would never come to pass. The Great Spirit watched with sorrow from the sky, and was touched by the grief of those women. From each teardrop that fell, he reached down and created an obsidian stone in the sand.

* * *

All tragedies, I suppose, have some element of beauty – a beauty directly related to the intensity of the breakdown. There's a kind of unrefined grace and elegance to the way she's now curled up on the bed, on what I know to be the side of the bed she never sleeps on. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen my best friend cry, and there's something unnerving about the quietness of the moment, and the sedated tone of her voice. I've witnessed her hysterics, once after the lost baby, and another time after the lost wedding – but this subdued grief is unsettlingly more potent.

She tells me the entire story, and not once does her voice falter or crack, but neither do the tears stop streaming from her eyes. "I thought I could handle it," she says. "I thought that I could be there for him. He's wounded. I'm a doctor. I thought I could fix it. But I can't close my eyes without picturing his hands around my neck. And no matter how much I rationalize, I'm scared. This is one contest I can't win. I failed him."

I remember a time when we used to pour out our sorrows alongside shots of tequila and chilled bowls of ice cream. When a pair of sweatpants and a dance track could alleviate the pain. Somewhere along the way those tricks of the trade have proven insufficient in battling the hurt. We had both left girlhood behind, and in spite of all the terrible things she's experienced before, it's only now that I see a woman relating to me her troubles from the day.

I reserve all judgment – for now, at least; no red-haired voodoo dolls will be harmed this time, because my best friend's heart is breaking in front of me, and there's nothing I can say that she hasn't already reasoned out on her own. And lifting her out of this daze is something that only she can do herself. Alice has followed the white rabbit into a deeper hole than any of us are prepared to help dig her out of. So for now, I do the only thing that's within my power – I hand her a tissue, and lie down beside her. "How did he propose?" she asks. And I recount the events from my day, until she's slowly drifted off to sleep, with tears still tracking down her cheeks.

* * *

It turns out that obsidian is quite a remarkable creation. While it looks black in your hand, by some miracle of nature it turns translucent when held up to the sunlight. Legend has it that anyone in possession of an Apache tear stone will never cry again, because the Apache women have wept enough to absolve us of all of our pain. And to this day, the sands along that cliff are crowded with obsidian stones – a sad reminder of a time when, with eyes toward the high cliffs and outstretched fingers toward the heavens, those warrior women wept for their lost loves.


	9. Orion

Chapter 9: Orion

"_Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy." – The Odyssey_

_

* * *

  
_

Ancient astronomers used to believe that the stars were immutable – celestial orbs permanently affixed to the heavens. They grouped them into constellations, gave them names and histories, and used them to track the movements of the planets across the sky. The unwavering steadiness of their motions gave those who looked upward some comfort in a world that was full of turmoil and uncertainty.

I had spent the past week avoiding all the places we had shared together. Not because I didn't want to see her, because I lived for the few moments where I could, even briefly, glance her passing by in the halls. My eyes would even linger longer than necessary over her name on the surgical board. No … I avoided those places – our places – because the thought of being next to her, without being able to hold her … well, I wasn't whole enough to withstand that kind of pain. Ironic. If I had the ability to be whole again, we could have still been together.

So, from time to time, when the sun takes leave for the day, I head upstairs to the roof and watch as constellations journey through the nighttime sky. I knew who it was before I even heard the footsteps approach – before she sat down close enough that I could smell the familiar scent of talcum powder and iodine, sandalwood and Shalimar. "You've been avoiding me," she states.

"I know."

"You don't have to do that."

"I know."

Sometimes words fail. But the heavens rarely do. I look up, and spot three familiar stars – aligned to form a perfect belt. "Do you know the story of Orion?" I ask.

Without waiting for a response, I continue on, "Orion was the son of Poseidon, the god of the seas. He was a hunter, as talented and skilled as any man alive. One day he hears a woman call out to him, 'Orion. Orion, turn around.' He turns and sees the most beautiful woman, whose skin was as luminous as the moon. She had dark, curly hair, and wore a silver tunic. She had a bow made of silver, and arrows tipped with pearl. And she says, 'I'm Artemis. I have never loved a man before, but I know that we were meant to be together.' And all at once, Orion loved her more deeply than he ever believed possible. Together they roamed the forests of the Greece.

"But then, Orion's pride led him to boast that he was so skilled a hunter that he could kill all the animals of the earth. Gaia, upon hearing this, was so infuriated with the man's arrogance, that she sent a giant scorpion to Orion, and ordered it to kill him. Even though he was a strong warrior, the battle was brief, and the scorpion delivered a deadly sting to Orion's ankle."

I turned to watch her expression and was surprised to find a hint of fury behind them. It was nowhere near the look of pity I was expecting to find. "You left out the last part of that story," she says.

I give her a questioning glance. "Orion dies from the scorpion's venom. What more is there to the story?"

"You left out the most important part," she says, as her words soften and she gazes back out at the constellation overhead. "Artemis comes back to find Hades claiming the body, and so she cries out to her father in despair. Zeus picks up Orion's body and places it in the sky, so that she could always be with him when she carried the moon across the heavens. He made Orion's stars the brightest so that Artemis would always be able to find him. And even though Zeus also placed the Scorpion into the sky as a reminder of mankind's own pride, Artemis moved the animal to the opposite side of the world. As one sets, the other one rises, so that the hunter and the hunted never cross paths. That's the important part."

She inches closer to me and places her head against my shoulder. Instinctively, my arm goes around her side, and for a few precious seconds, it's as if the past has been erased. "You're right," I tell her.

She looks at me and says, "I know."

* * *

**AN: Dialogue's a little bit out of character, but couldn't resist.  
Reviews are the wind beneath my wings. Thanks for all the wonderful responses. **


	10. Carousel

Chapter 10: Carousel

Seas rise and mountains fall. We form bonds to wage war time and again for the ashes of our fathers and the temples of our gods – and finally settle on peace when no one is left to fight the good fight. We live, we love, and we die. And at the end of the day, the only thing we can be sure of – the only certainty that exists – is that what has happened before will happen again. It's the natural cycle of the world.

Every winter, the city assembles a carousel in the middle of the downtown square. Children, through a combination of wheedling and whining, somehow end up convincing their parents to wait for hours outside in the cold for a two-minute ride on a mechanical horse going nowhere. It's absolutely a waste of time, but I can't help walking by the ride as often as I can during those few holiday weeks– because the best part about walking by that carousel is watching the kids when they circle back around and wave at their parents once again. For them, the most exciting aspect of the ride is that, no matter how fast they go, or how many new things they get to see, home is never more than one revolution away.

By the time childhood loses its innocent patina the luster of the carousel begins to dim as well. As an adult, coming back to the starting point is no longer quaint, nor is it reassuring. It represents simply another failure; another lost chance to forge a distinguished path – another repeated mistake. It's nature's way of reminding us of the rhythmic patterns of nature. The earth spins on its axis every 24 hours, and circles the sun every 365 days. We experience first kisses and heartbreaks just as regularly as the waxing and waning of the moon every month. We battle life and death every day in the operating room. Sometimes we win; oftentimes we lose. Then lather, then rinse, and then repeat.

I think – or hope – that the constant cycling of events in our lives isn't necessarily a regression. It's an opportunity to make amends, and to fix the mistakes that weren't supposed to be made. Because, if you think about it, no one can really go back to living the exact circumstances of where they were. Sure, you can reconcile with an old boyfriend, but the wounds from past fights are still there. You can revert back to old habits, but the weight of separation has aged the once familiar feelings. You can go back to your parents' house for the holidays and sleep in your old bedroom, but it's never the same. A child will always come back around to the starting point on the carousel having now witnessed 360 degrees of new sights, however brief they might have been. And the girl who left the starting gate now has the option to experience another revolution given some updated variables.

A circle is not really a circle. It's a helix. We rotate around to the same location, just on a different level. And with any luck, with each passing, we reach a little bit higher each time. Maybe that's the reason déjà vu feels like an ephemeral creature, since we almost, but never fully, recognize the situations we're reliving. Maybe it's somehow futile to try to drastically change our fates. How many different tragic heroes fell victim while trying to defy the oracles? Maybe we're supposed to embrace the prospect of coming back to where we started, and doing it all over again. Once more, with feeling.

Of course, this is all pure speculation … a bit of wishful thinking from a woman sitting on the bathroom floor staring once again at a stick that displays an unmistakable plus sign.


	11. Admissions

Chapter 11: Admissions

* * *

Applicant ID: 70594250

There comes a point in everyone's life when belief in one's infallibility gives way to the cold truth that tragedy and injury are equal opportunity offenders. Some people learn this early on, and choose to avoid risk and danger – always on guard for possible pratfalls. Then there are those who, by some combination of luck and fate, manage to stave off misfortune, instead daring to rebuke caution and hesitancy. Each time they jump from a higher altitude, race with a faster velocity, or journey for longer distances. But reality strikes, as it always does, and forces them to re-evaluate the opportunity costs for tempting fate, and most thrill-seekers eventually come to join the ranks of the wary.

I was six years old when I first experienced the excitement that comes from climbing a tree, and made it my goal to find taller and taller ones each time. I was 10 when I made my first bungee jump, 12 when I climbed my first mountain, 14 when I first flew on a hang glider, and 17 when reality finally caught up with me.

Just before the start of senior year in high school, my best friend, David, and I decided to attempt the holy grail of Washington mountain climbing – Mt. Rainier. We had done our research over the summer, bought all the necessary equipment, met up with a group of experienced climbers. We were ready and excited, with the kind of careless enthusiasm that only 17-year-olds can have. So, early in the morning, we packed the car, took the requisite photographs, reassured our parents that we knew what we were getting ourselves into, and then drove off.

Mt. Rainier is a little over two hours from the city. A mile away from the house, though, a drunk driver sped through a red light, and collided with the passenger side of the car. I woke up in the hospital five hours later. David never did. It's ironic. We spent weeks making sure we had all the proper safety equipment, teaching ourselves the intricacies of the area, memorizing the weather patterns and checkpoints. But you can't plan for the unexpected, or even begin to understand the reasons behind the cruelty of fortune.

That was the moment when I was supposed to reconsider the choices I had made in my life, and maybe tamp down the adventure seeking. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized: to hell with that. Life happens. Fate isn't meant to be understood anymore than tragedy can be averted. Be grateful when things are good, and count your blessings when things are bad. And the only certainty is that time keeps ticking. Living for the next adventure, however risky, at least lets you know that you're alive.

That day was supposed to be the one where I put aside the ropes and karabiners, but it wasn't. Instead, it was the day that I decided to be a doctor. Some people will say that the reason they want to go into medicine is to help people. And it's true. Of course I want to help people. Of course I think about the ways I might have saved David. But I know that that given situation was futile. I want to be a doctor because I don't know how not to be one. How do you not choose the adventure of battling to save someone – to fight the uncertainty of fate with the surety of medicine? How can you know anything about life unless you're confronted with the finality of death? It's the key lesson that David has taught me, all those years ago, and it's one that I relearn over and over again, every day of my life.

* * *

Applicant ID: 91827

No kid ever dreams about growing up to be mediocre, but more often than not it's what happens to most of them. People think that genius is something you're either born with or without. It's not true. Talent, intelligence, aptitude – they're all traits we're genetically predisposed to have, but greatness is something that is cultivated by environment, dictated by opportunity, and governed by dedication.

The great minds of each generation – Da Vinci, Newton, Darwin, Einstein – they all shared a common trait that wasn't linked to IQ scores, although theirs were undoubtedly high. They all had an uncommon passion for their respective fields, and spent more time than their contemporaries in studying and working in them. It was those extra hours that distinguished them, marking their places in academic history.

In second grade, the elementary school starts separating the students they deem "gifted" from all of the rest. These kids get better teachers, more attention, newer books, and harder coursework. And by the end of the year, they all perform better than their less gifted peers. No wonder. Given that kind of opportunity, what child wouldn't excel in such an environment?

I wasn't chosen to be in the gifted class the year I started second grade. To this day, I still wonder how low my test score was in that original exam. How far below the bar did I fall? What did I do wrong? And how are teachers able to predict the ability of children at the tender age of seven?

Those questions are no longer so significant in the grand scheme of things. The next school year I did test well enough to join the special class, and ever since then I've been the top of my year, every single year. It's not because I am the absolute smartest person, because I know that there are students out there with higher IQ scores, and incredible abilities I can only dream of. But I am talented, and this I can guarantee you: no one will put in as much effort or time into medicine and research than I will.

That is the secret to success, and that is the something that separates greatness from mediocrity – a willingness to dedicate one's life to a single passion. Mozart started composing at the age of five, but it wasn't until decades and hours of performances later that he gained the renown and skill that he is now famed for. I have wanted to save lives since I was nine years old, and that has been the goal I have been aiming towards for the last 12 years. Given the opportunity, I can provide the talent to become a good doctor, but more importantly, I will supply the time and commitment to becoming one of the great minds of my generation.

* * *


	12. Home Sweet Home

Chapter 12: Home Sweet Home

October 15, 2008

Mom,

Had a little bit of downtime so I thought I'd write to tell you about what's been going on recently over here. Started working with a new group of doctors on the forward surgical unit. They decided it was too cliché to call me Red, so this surgeon from Louisiana started calling me Ketchup. Original, I know. Hope to God the name doesn't catch on, but I think it might be too late. I've already started responding to it, which is a sure sign that I've lost this fight. Doesn't sound too manly, right?

Last week we responded to an IED attack in the middle of the night. Three guys. The driver was dead before we got there, but the other two were conscious and making conversation. This one kid – couldn't have been more than 20 years old – wasn't able to see out of his right eye. During the explosion, a piece of metal had lodged itself underneath his cornea. We bandaged him up and then sent him back to Walter Reed to get more surgery done. Hopefully he'd regain his eyesight after a few more operations. He looked absolutely devastated. Kept asking how long it would take before he could return to his unit. These guys live and breathe for the military, and it's a beautiful and heartbreaking thing to watch. It's not about the war. It's never about the war. It's about the guys fighting alongside them, and watching their backs, making sure they get home safe to their families.

Some days are more difficult than others. I've stopped counting how many patients have died under my care. At some point you start dreading those types of benchmarks. But just yesterday we brought in a soldier whose leg had been injured and needed to be amputated. He called home to his wife to let her know he was going to be okay, and he found out that his wife had just given birth to a baby girl. They named her Joy. Sometimes, in the midst of all the blood, I'm reminded that there's still beauty left in the world. And that's what we're fighting for. It's why I'm out here in the desert instead of back in Seattle where I know you would prefer me to be.

Home seems like so long ago. It's the really obscure things that I remember sometimes at night. Like how the third step on the staircase always squeaked, or how the hot water takes 15 minutes to finally turn on. When I close my eyes I can still see the way the basement window cracked when I hit a baseball into it in sixth grade, or the way the grass never quite grew back on the spot where I accidentally spilled an entire container of bleach. Did you know that I can smell the rain falling on the front pavement when I read your letters?

I'm not going to lie, Mom. It's a hard place to be right now. I wake up every morning and hope that there won't be any accidents in the field to go to, and within ten minutes that hope is gone. But if I can do my part over here in helping to reunite a soldier with his or her family – that's the best feeling. People always talk about wanting to do something to change the world, but it doesn't take any grand sweeping gestures to accomplish that. All it takes is helping out one person. Alter the course of one life for the better. How many people can actually say they're able to do that on a daily basis? I'll take the pain, because even though the rewards will never overshadow the loss, it's how we grow. At some point you have to decide whether or not life is worth dying for. And I know that it is. I see it in the eyes of every single soldier I come across.

Try not to worry too much about me. I'll try to call soon. Love you.

-Owen


	13. Triptych

Chapter 13: Triptych

In the big VCR of life, if I had my way, this would have been one of the scenes to rewind and start again. (Barring the obvious other ones, of course.) And this is what should have been said.

* * *

Every once in a while … every once in a while there comes a day when you can sum up all your feelings in a three word sentence – those times, more often than not, involve funerals or weddings. Other than that, there aren't very many moments in life that are so clear and concise as to be too big for three words. How do you expect me to maneuver through this narrow triptych you've painted?

Here are three words: The situation sucks.

Here are three more: Not your fault.

Get the point yet? Don't ignore me.

How about this: I miss you.

You can't walk around pretending to be happy while holding scraps of notepaper in your pocket dictating how to behave. You can't tell me how you're feeling by avoiding any meaning in what you say. It isn't enough for your heart to break because everybody's heart is broken.

Stop blaming yourself.

Let me help.

Talk to me.

What about this: I need you.

You and your broken life are what put me back together again. Maybe one day I'll tell you the whole story – explain to you the circumstances from which you rescued me. Maybe, sometime in the future, I'll let you see exactly how accurate it was when you called me a "damsel in distress" and I'll let you know how my knight in shining armor actually came in on a white ambulance, dressed in fatigues, and stained in blood. That's still a far ways off. Right now, though, since I have only words to play with:

Get well soon.

Change comes slowly.

Time heals all.

Then there's this: I want you.

Every night there's a brief moment before I turn the corner to my apartment when I can pretend that what happened didn't happen. When the possibility is still open – when there still exists a chance that you will be sitting on the steps outside the building, waiting for me to come home. And we could talk again – just talk – about anything, or nothing. It's those few magical seconds when I can suspend reality – when I can feign normalcy and act as if the worst thing about the day was the weather.

It's your fault.

You hurt me.

How dare you.

I hate you.

It's the words I know you think I'm thinking. You're wrong. And get used to the idea that I'm smarter than you. There's guilt, and then there's self-inflicted torture. Stop walking around thinking that I feel any sort of animosity toward you. I'm not made of candy glass, and you are more than the sum of your unconscious actions. We can't be together now, and I understand that. I was a reluctant proponent of that strategy. But not being in your arms doesn't also mean not being in your life.

Look at me.

Laugh with me.

Fight with me.

And understand this: I forgive you.

Stop playing this frustrating game of mad libs, because if you can honestly be yourself in three words or less, then you're not the man I thought you were. Surgery has taught me nothing if not that life can't be stopped. Fathers die, friends get cancer, and on occasion we accidentally hurt those we love. The bruises on my neck faded away weeks ago. One day I'll tell you about the other scar on my abdomen – a souvenir from my own time on the battlefield.

Stop playing games.

Get some sleep.

Start again tomorrow.

And know this: I love you.

* * *

That's what I should have said. But it's hard to think of anything moving or eloquent when he's looking at you with so much pain and anguish in his eyes. And it's hard to speak when your throat closes up and the tears keep coming despite fighting to maintain composure. And it's hard to keep from closing the distance between the two of you, and kissing him, and feeling his fingers stroke your hair. It's even harder to hand him back the crinkled sheet of paper without reaching out for his hand.

He was right. Because the most difficult thing of all, the thing that absolutely killed me, was walking away after uttering another meaningless three-word sentence:

Take care now.


	14. E Tan, E Epi Tas

Chapter 14: E Tan, E Epi Tas

_An Athenian once asked why Spartan women were the only ones who could rule over their men. The Spartan replied, "Because we are the only women who give birth to real men."_

You were born at 5:57 on a Thursday morning, arriving in the midst of a crimson dawn just as the sun came up to skim over the horizon – arriving just in time to see the last remaining traces of night bid farewell to the pacific skyline. For nine months I had breathed life into you, and you were mine completely. In the instant that you left my body I no longer claimed sole possession of you, but from that moment forward you had all of me. And all my triumphs and joys were entwined with yours. Your name means _warrior_, and its meaning permeates every fiber of your being.

_E tan, e epi tas_.

Happiness is the key to success. I told you that when you were five years old. You always had a penchant for getting into trouble without really doing anything wrong. I could never decide if that was better or worse than what other parents had to go through. One time your teacher asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up, and your answer was simply: happy. She told you that you didn't understand the question. You told her that she didn't understand life. That was the beginning of many parent-teacher conferences that you never knew about.

_E tan, e epi tas_.

With each step you take bear courage in mind. Fear was never a word that you ever embraced, nor fully understood. You've never been afraid to reach, and though attaining every goal was far from guaranteed, failure was never a deterrent. I used to hold your hand whenever we crossed the street. When you were six, you looked up at me and told me that cars were nothing to be scared of, but that you'd keep holding my hand just so I'd feel safer. I didn't have the heart to laugh or correct you, mostly because you were so earnest, partly because there was some glimmer of truth behind that child-like reassurance.

_E tan, e epi tas_.

Tradition provides the illusion of permanence. We celebrated holidays and anniversaries as much as any family. But the first day of spring always held a place of great importance. That was the day that your father would bring home a handful of yellow wildflowers for me. It started the year we first met, when flowers from the side of the road were all that he could afford - but it became a ritual we could set our hearts to. Of course I loved the roses on Valentine's, and the calla lilies marking my birthdays, but the greatest joy came from the smallest buds found in the wild. He passed away the winter you turned ten. I had always thought you were too young to notice that particular tradition. Then the next spring, I walked into the kitchen to find a bouquet, tied askew with a shoestring, sitting in the middle of the table. And every first day of spring since then, there have always been wildflowers waiting for me.

_E tan, e epi tas_.

The night before you left for the desert, I told you this: If you're ever feeling homesick, stop. Send a kiss to the winds, and prepare yourself for the subsequent task at hand. Embrace whatever uncertainty may come, and never waste time with regret – it would be an exercise in futility. And if you ever look around and find yourself completely lost, take a breath, and start over. Begin by retracing your steps and go back to the purest place in your heart. That's where your hope lives. That's where you'll find happiness. That's the place where you'll find your way again.

_E tan, e epi tas. _

You ask forgiveness for sins that you never committed, and redemption for wrongs that were never yours to set right. You come here laden with the guilt of nineteen other men, seeking absolution. But the only thing you have to do to make me happy is to come home at the end of the day. My son, my warrior: with your shield, or on it.


	15. Halfway There

15. Halfway There

_Once upon a time there lived a beautiful maiden high atop a tower. Every morning, she would look out from her window over the fields of golden wheat, searching for some unknown hero to come and complete the future she had painted for herself. And every evening, when the sun had set over the burnt hills of the land and no visitor had arrived, the maiden would bid one final look outside, and go to sleep dreaming about the possibilities for the next day. But the next day brought no change, and eventually the years passed by until one day, with weary eyes and wounded heart, she climbed down from the tower to seek her own future. As she opened the door to the outside world, she stumbled across an injured knight returning from a distant kingdom. And so she took him in, washed away the dirt, stitched together the cuts. And after he had been bandaged, and some strength had returned, she took his hand and helped him find his way back home. _

_Once upon a time there was a maiden who learned that life is what happens while you're waiting for the fairy tale ending. _

_

* * *

_Love comes in disguise of instantaneous revelation, but more often than not it's a gradual realization of a slowly established certainty. The pathway from stranger to soulmate is a continuous one, and a not a series of discrete, broken jumps. You can't count progress by marking hours on the clock, waiting for midnight to strike. It's not:

Day one – meet a guy

Day two – like the guy

Day three – really like the guy

Day twelve – true love

I don't believe in love at first sight. I do believe in lust at first sight – an inexplicable instant physical attraction – I can even entertain the notion of an emotional recognition between kindred spirits. I believe that the groundwork for love can be established, and its occurrence set in motion upon an initial meeting. But how can you really know someone without the benefit of time? Look at Romeo and Juliet. They fell for the idea of love, and not the actual thing. The fantasy of romance was far stronger than the reality, and illusion is a bitter pill to take once shattered.

But what the hell do I know?

In college, there comes a certain point in time when homework questions become so convoluted that you can no longer find the solutions in the back of a book. That's when you know you're screwed, because the answers are now ones that you're going to have to come up with on your own. Logic and reason and a huge leap of faith will sometimes lead you to down the correct path, other times toward dead ends.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't know how this is supposed to go. I don't know where to find the answers anymore. I'm not the girl who gets giddy over flowers and candy. Actually, that's exactly the type of thing to make me want to run out of a relationship. I never thought that getting impaled by a giant icicle would have changed my life so dramatically, although I dare you to name me one sane person who could ever expect something like that. I never planned on you asking me to drop my pants first, and then kiss me afterwards. I didn't think it was possible for me to become so dependent on another person, and that's something that feels so incredibly foreign. To lose all control of oneself? It's a surgeon's nightmare.

This isn't _Jerry Maguire_, and I'm not going to tell you that you complete me or that you had me at "hello," even though you do, and you absolutely did. You ask me to meet you halfway, but the rules of the game have changed and I don't even know where I'm standing. And do you realize that if your ridiculous plan to re-enlist were actually feasible that our halfway point would be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? Trust me when I tell you that I'm not overly fond of Flipper.

I've spent a lifetime planning my future, setting goals and reaching them, knowing what to expect and when to expect it. And then you arrive, with your pen tracheotomies and anesthetized pigs, removing random icicles from complete strangers. All of a sudden I started feeling careless and stupid and light-headed. I thought it was the flu. Turns out, it was just love.

However uncertain and unpredictable the future may be, though, at least it's ours to live. We've been given the gift of time and memory, and until today I never realized just how important that was. So yes, I'll meet you halfway, wherever that may be, because I'm not a princess, and this isn't a fairy tale, and because you had me at "so?"


	16. If You Decide To Speak

16. If You Decide To Speak

Trauma surgery's always been about the team – about the total group effort. We win together and we lose together. We celebrate and grieve together. Failures are softened and successes are made sweeter because we did them together. But what happens when "no man is an island" gets turned into "every man for himself"?

I had come back home to face a land of sunshine and shadows. Only now the shadows rested longer, and the sunshine became more transient. And the more I tried to fight it, the more elusive became the concept of peace of mind. So, in this unique brand of self-imposed isolation, I became resigned to being bound in a nutshell. I counted myself a prince of infinitesimal space and started living life in the shade of bad dreams. And I decided that no one would ever have to know why.

My hands were clean, but not because I wasn't prepared to bloody them. Did that lessen the blame, or only increase my burden? All I know is that the smallest glance you gave me was the greatest gift I ever received. Yet the most I had to offer was the very least that you deserved. On multiple fronts I acted rashly, pulling you in when I knew we weren't ready, pushing others away when I knew they could help. I didn't pay heed to the warning signs, and I didn't behave the way a man should have. But you told me to make amends like one.

That has made all the difference. Because of you, the sweet charade of slumber finally became a tangible reality. And for the first time since I've been in the after, I've been able to catch a glimpse of who I was in the before. It was someone who was capable of laughing without irony – someone who didn't mind being accused of having a self-assured swagger – a person who was worthy of you.

Choose a job.

Choose a specialty.

Choose a life of adventure in a far away land.

Choose risky drives and impulse buys, motorcycles and leather jackets.

Choose cigarettes and whiskey, tobacco and scotch.

Choose all-night bars and karaoke songs.

Choose white picket fences, two dogs, and a cat.

Choose caution and patience, practicality and coffee.

Choose a family.

Choose a car.

Choose a career.

Whatever the choices, they never turn out the way you plan, because the biggest adventure of them all – the highest thrill – came from something that I had no choice in making.

It was falling in love with you.

Change is a whisper and simply a choice. I got caught up in the ruse of self-pity to hear above the noise. But then, in the depth and stillness of the solitary night your heart reached out to mine. Your voice broke through over the quiet and chaos of my troubled soul.

So now this is my choice – one that I'm actually capable of: I choose to be a better man for you. I know I can do it; I can be a better man with you. And if you'd let me, for today and tomorrow and for all the uncounted years yet to come, I'll be there to listen if you decide to speak.

* * *

_Fin_


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